Former Logan County residents receive CSU Honored Alumni Award

Neal Fehringer, WIlliam Berg recognized for significant contributions to agronomy

Journal-Advocate staff

Posted:
10/01/2012 01:33:47 PM MDT

Neal Fehringer (Courtesy Photo)

STERLING — Colorado State University recently presented Honored Alumni Awards, for graduates from the department of soil and crop sciences, to two former Logan County residents.

Recipients included Neal Fehringer, a 1975 Peetz High School graduate; Dr. William Berg, who grew up on a farm southeast of Sterling and graduated from St. Anthony High School; and Fred Cholick.

The Honored Alumni Award was established in 2001 by the generosity of Wayne and Joyce Keim. Dr. Keim was department head for about 25 years, including while Fehringer attended CSU.

Recipients are selected based on the significant and diverse contributions that they have made to the field of agronomy, the study of soils and crops and their interaction.

Fehringer began his agricultural career by tagging along behind his father, George Fehringer. His father installed a “buddy seat” on the tractor long before machinery manufacturers had the idea, so Neal could ride along and learn by observing.

George Fehringer died in 1974 when Neal was 18. Neal's older brothers, Bernie and Ken, formed the George E. Fehringer Company and had Neal join as a partner. Neal participated in the farming operation while attending CSU from 1975 to 1979.

Upon graduation from CSU in 1979, Fehringer worked for First Continental Corporation (FCC) of Billings, Mont. FCC had approximately 60,000 acres of farmland when he began and expanded that to 130,000 two years later.

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Fehringer was the staff agronomist and was responsible for all agronomy activities on the 11 farms in two states. In addition, he managed two of the smaller farms and developed FCC's custom farming rates.

He has been self-employed as a consulting agronomist since 1981. His business is Fehringer Agricultural Consulting, Inc.

Fehringer is a certified professional agronomist (C.P.Ag) and certified crop advisor (C.C.A.), both designations of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA). He has been a member of the ASA since 1979.

Fehringer has consulted on more than 15 different crops. He has also provided expert witness services and performed contract research. Since 1981, he has made all fertilizer and soil amendment recommendations for soil tests performed at Energy Laboratories locations in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

From 2002 to present, Fehringer also worked with coalbed natural gas (CBNG) producers on managed irrigation, which utilizes CBNG produced water for irrigating crops. This water is high in sodium and bicarbonates.

Additionally, from 2003 to 2011, he was the agronomist for the Tongue River Information Program (TRIP) team. TRIP is a multi-year comprehensive program that is collecting soils and crops data within the Tongue River Drainage in Montana to determine if the CBNG water being discharged into the Tongue River caused changes in soil chemistry and crop production, and if so, did those changes have an impact.

Since 2008, Fehringer has owned and operated Fehringer Ag Strip Tillage, a custom strip tillage farming operation that provides farmers the opportunity to try strip tillage without having to purchase equipment first. He has designed a ridging and ditching system for his machine's use on flood irrigated fields.

Fehringer was on the advisory committee for the South Agricultural Research Center in Huntley, Mont., for nine years. He was on the state advisory committee for three years and has been involved with the Montana-Wyoming Sugar Beet Symposium Planning Committee for the past eight years.

Fehringer is a music minister at his church and has been in charge of planning and directing Youth Mass for the past 18 years.

Berg's professional interests have centered on vegetation establishment and management on disturbed lands. His interest begain on his parent's dryland wheat and livestock farm in northeast Colorado, where soil ridges are still visible from dust accumulation along fences in the 1930s.

Berg has a bachelor's degree in agronomy, a master's degree in soil fertility at CSU and a doctorate in soil chemistry from North Carolina State University.

A job on a U.S. Forest Service soil survey in southeast Montana from 1960 to 1964, enhanced his natural resource knowledge. Berg worked with range scientists, plant ecologists and foresters to develop survey interpretations.

From 1964 to 1968 he researched coal mine spoils for the Forest Service in eastern Kentucky. Fertility and plant selection studies were estabilished in cooperation with mining operators and state agencies.

From 1968 to 1908, Berg worked on reclamation of mined lands for the Agronomy Department at CSU. The chemical and physical characteristics of many mine spoils and processed mining wastes were determined and field studies established. Major efforts were runoff and lysimeter studies on spent oil shale and soil covered spent shale.

Building on those findings and those of others, a High Altitude Revegetation Workshop was organized and has continued for 40 years with field trips, meetins and published proceedings.

At CSU, Berg conducted field trips and gave some lectures on forest and range soils. He started a course, Distrubed Lands, teaching 40 to 80 students per year.

In 1975, the Range Science Club honored him as the Outstanding Professor of Range Science.

From 1980 to 1996, Berg was a research soil scientists at the USDA-ARS Southern Plains Range Research Station in western Oklahoma. He worked to select, establish, fertilize and manage grazing on grasses and forbs on highly-erodible farmlands. Then, studies combined this information into graving systems with native rangeland.

Berg said over his career he learned a lot, has cooperated with many people, agencies and companies, enjyed traveling and being outdoors, and had supportive bosses and good technical assistants. He taught, gave presentations and authored or co-authored about 150 publications.

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